THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 1897.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10404, 31 March 1897, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 1897.

Mr. Ben T:llett has fallen upon evi days. Hβ came unto his own and his own received him not, but, on the contrary, from the labour organs of the colony everywhere the great labour leader is warned aud lectured, and told that he has no mission here, and that lie is out of place in the. colony. This is rather hard on Mr. Tillett, and we feel inclined to take him by the hand and give him what assistance lie may need in correctly apprehending the condition of tilings in the colony, and their bearing on the great work to which lie has devoted his life. It seems rather hard that he should be told, as he has been told at Wellington by the journal that exists for the furtherance of the cause he has espoused, that his speech was "Contradictory, topsyturvy, albeit glibly expressed," that there were "oceans of sack in it, but very little bread, and what there was of the latter was riddled by the weevils of illdigested reading and lack of power to think and reason clearly." And he is advised to betake himself away to "an island in the Indian Ocean out of the track of the world's trade, taking those who think with him and their new ideas, their contempt for coined money, and their abhorrence of all that men uphold as needful to the preservation of society." Why this anger? we might well enquire, and why this cold aud, wo might say, constrained if not hostile reoeption of a man who, whatever his views, has given his life almost a sacrifice in the promotion of the interests of the poor, and the suffering of his fellow men. It is not our province to defend Mr. Tillett from his friends or from those whom he may have expected to be his friends. But if he has been misled by the representations that had been made to him of New Zealand, and if he lias been disappointed in not finding here that advanced spirit of socialistic self-sacrifice and brotherhood which he has visioned to himself in the perfectibility of human nature, Mr. Tillett is not to be blamed for it, but rather those who assuming the garb and the jargon of socialism may have been posing for a character which has not been sustained by * facts. Mr. Tillett has perhaps somewhat roughly been drawing the screen aside, and talking about what he sees in his own blunt homely way,'and hence these tears.

The simple fact is that Mr. Tillett is a Socialist, with his mind full of those ideas of generous self-sacrifice and universal brotherhood which, however Utopian and impossible they may be in the present unregenerate condition of humanity, are noble and elevating in their nature; and he is addressiug a party that is inspired by more unbloudfid selfishness than ever actuated any other party in the history of the colonies, He is addressing a party whose ideas of justice are moulded only on the lines of justice—und as much more as can be obtained for itself, but has not the faintest conception of the duty of extending either justice or generosity to any even of its own class outside the narrow circle of its own interests. At the recent social in his honour, Mr. Tillett gave an eloquent and pathetic picture of the sufferings of the poor in his native land, for whose sufferings his heart really bleeds, and for whom with all the warmth of an earnest nature he would be prepared to do almost anything to secure their social salvation. There is something singularly touching in his words. Hβ compared the appearance of the workers here with that of the workers in 'England, and "it made him sad to contrast them with what he had seen at Home. The Canaan might not be for them to enter, but let them work in the night time of despair until tiie dawn should appear," Mr. Tillett no doubt knows that our shores are sealed against the advent of those poor workers by the unsympiitlietic hostility of their own flesh and blood, the workers here, who are as jealous of their advent as if they were Chinese. He must have heard how "undesirable immigrants," that is to say, those who have not money in their pockets, are barred from passing over the Jordan to this Canaan of ours, and i that ia a land of fertility and bound-

less resources, which is only fringed by population, the sentiment of those whom he had fondly fancied to be Socialists is utterly opposed to fclin adrent of immigrants for fear that his poor hungry and hopeless millions in England might interfere with ths earnings of these ruddy faced, robust, and buxoms workers whose physique and happiness have attracted his eye and made him so sad by the contrast. Mr. Tillett must have learned by this time that our working population regard their unhappy fellowworkers at home as having no heritage in this goodly laud, and would resent the idea of any of them being transferred to this land of plenty, that they even resented the beneficent proposals of General Booth, who desired to transfer a colouy of the submerged masses, and to nourish thorn into a self-sustaining community. Mr. Tillett will have learned that in respect to the suffering workers of England, we who occupy this vast unpeopled and fertile country are like people on a raft who resent the intrusion of others battling fiercely for their lives with the pitiless waves, and that so far from feeling for our flesh and blood in the congested districts of England we would keep them out as " undesirable immigrants."

Our visitor is in delicate health, and comes as he says, "Asick man seeking rest in this beautiful climate," and it is our sincere hope that he may find health here and return with renewed strength to carry on his earnest useful work for ameliorating the conditions of life to the suffering workers at home. But Mr. Tillett should know that the spirit of our labour party, as reflected in legislation is not to admit the delicate to the benefits of our :i beautiful climate," and that if Mr. Tillett himself had come sick with an affection of the lungs, the spirit of our policy would have been to drive him back from our shores, which we accept as having been given by God Almighty for the exclusive possession of our own selves. Ere this Mr. Tillett must have seen that this spirit of absolute and cruel selfishness pervades the whole of our Labour legislation', and that this country is far removed from the condition, so picturesquely described by him, in which " working men all over the world would recognise one another as brothers." Mr. Tillett must have sefin that there is uot in our Labour policy and Labour party the faintest shadow of that generous Socialistic spirit which he hopes to see yet pervading humanity, and that on the contrary there is a constricted view of mutual obligations between working man and working man, which is bounded by the narrowest and most ignorant self-interests, and looks in no case beyond the shore line of New Zealand. And when he goes back to England, and tells his suffering followers there about this (Janaan of ours, let him make them know that though our beautiful hills and glen's could eive homes manifold to all the distressed workers of the United Kingdom, they may not pass the Jordan, as we consider the land all too little for ourselves, and that if sick or destitute they come seeking health or homes, they will be repelled as "undesirable immigrants" by the Labour party of New Zealand.